Author's Note: This was written for the Bludhaven Summer Tournament to support Selina Kyle in the Sweet Sixteen Round 1. And it is also evidence why cleansing in the summer is bad for your brain.

A/N 2: This is the less racy version, the original story was sadly deemed unfit by the powers That Be and was deleted, although that was surprising to me seeing how many ridiculously more erotic and over sleazy fan fics get on this site every single day... ho hum.

^V^

Crap.

Crap, crap, crap.

I had caught the Mad Hatter in my first year as Robin and taken him down numerous times since. He wasn't a great threat to the people of Gotham, more like a thorn in Batman's side. And of course the weekend the Alice in Wonderland delusionsl nut bag had escaped just so happened to be when I had offered to lend a hand while Bruce was in Egypt hunting down Ra's Al Ghul…

Jervis Tetch had injured four guards at Arkham Asylum, not in a physical altercation but rather after they had been electrocuted by faulty mind control chips the inmate had conjured up in his cell. The guards would have square shaped burns scars on their temples but otherwise would live to half-watch security monitors another day. The distraction had been enough for Tetch to hop, skip and jump to freedom, using the final chip he had made on a delivery truck driver to talk him beyond the confines of the institution.

When I had called Bruce about the escape, he had been quick to ask if Tetch had been the only one. Once I had confirmed it, he had grunted, "Can you handle it?"

I had handled it when I was still in little green shorts so I had assured him, "I'm sure I can."

Crap.

After some less than friendly conversations with the usual sorted lot of Gotham's underbelly, I had followed a lead into the East End. Apparently, Tetch had been trying to find a place to set up shop, offering local patrons afternoon tea before robbing them blind. As always, he had left a messy trail and after only two nights, I had cornered him in an auditorium of a school that had closed when the city budget had bombed. He had done well enough in his forty-eight hours of freedom, decorating the stage for the famed tea parties he loved to host. Tim had once recounted one he and Bruce had crashed after Bane bombed Arkham…

"Creeeeeepy," he had said.

Aside from the lucrative touches to bring his treasured tale to life, Tetch had also outfitted the cavernous room with several booby traps, many of the electrical nature. Cutting the power and destroying the generator, I had pursued him through the rows of seats with my night vision and a smile on my face.

That was until I had dodged stepping on a rat on the stage and ended up stepping on a snare, retracting so quickly that I smashed my head on the hardwood floor of the stage before ascending skyward. As blood dripped from the back of my head, I had stared down as Tetch laughed and danced around, my fuzzy hearing vaguely making out lines from Lewis Carrol. I judged that I was roughly twenty feet up with my foot just inches from the overhead catwalk. Concussed, I had reasoned that cutting the rope meant hitting my head again among other parts of my body. I had tried to curl up and grab the metal framing up above but my vision went blurry and I missed.

Bruce was on the far side of Africa. Tim was on a school trip in Metropolis. I could have called Barbara but last I knew, she wasn't talking to me…

"Twinkle, twinkle little bat! How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky…"

My last conscious effort had been hitting him with a tranquilizer dart, causing Tetch him to stumble off the stage and land face first on the auditorium floor.

Making it nap time for two of us…

With no idea how long I had been out, I woke to a gently tapping on my foot. I shook my blood filled head before looking up to the catwalk. Had my night lenses not been activated, I would have never seen her in the dark.

"Wakey, wakey, big bird," Catwoman grinned at me.

"Catwoman… I…" my head fell back down, causing me to sway. Tetch was still in a pile on the ground below, it had to have been less than two hours or else he would have been coming to. Add in the throbbing in my ears and I estimated it had been at least twenty minutes.

Showing no interest in helping me, she replied, "I was strolling by, saw the doors were open, figured I'd sneak in and see what tonight's show was… looks like I missed it."

"Tetch… I… help."

"I'm sorry, what was that I didn't hear the magic word?" she smirked. Despite having known her for years, I was still confused by Selina Kyle. She was bad, then good, then bad again. She was always either trying to seduce Batman or clawing his face off, often both simultaneously. Bruce had once explained that she was an opportunist more than anything else, that if she could benefit from a specific course of action, she would take it.

Alfred always mused that she, above all, was the most dangerous of his foes simply because she was so unpredictable.

Surely she would be able to look back on all the good times and spare me…

"Please, help me," I said, my words coming out slurred.

She rose to her feet, looking as if she was actually contemplating leaving me. As panic washed over me, Catwoman sighed, "Relax, kid… I'm just limbering up… pulling you up here is going to kill my back."

In order to do what I could to help, I began swinging back and forth, the rope creaking against the metal pulley it was anchored to. Had I not bashed my brain, it would have been a simple maneuver and I would have already been back at the Manor eating turkey sandwiches with Alfred.

With enough momentum to at least reach my arms towards her, Catwoman knelt, locking her feet into the metal walkway before grabbing on to me. My arms were tingling with poor circulation so I barely felt it when she dug her claws into my wrists. She was barely one-hundred and twenty pounds, putting me over fifty pounds heavier than her. Nevertheless, she grunt, growled, cursed under her breath but finally pulled my torso up to safety.

While I dragged the rest of the way, she bent over and sliced the rope that had ensnared me. Upright, my head began to pound nearly as much as my heart. Where she had been smirking earlier, concern washed over her exposed lips as she looked over the laceration on the back of my head.

"Ever consider wearing a real mask instead of that flimsy thing?" she asked before gently probing the wound.

"Middle name is Danger… live life on the edge…"

She smiled at that, "So I see…" As I examined my ankle for any sign of injury, she continued, "I find it hard to believe that I am the one that came to your rescue."

Flexing my foot and wiggling sensation back into my toes, I responded, "Well, that would be because I am holding down the fort for a few days. At least until he gets back from trotting around the globe after a megalomaniacal eco-terrorist."

"Sounds like fun… For him, not for you… this is a big city."

I nodded before looking to her, "I think I know that."

"Of course, you've been traipsing it since pre-pubescence."

Blaming it on the light-headedness and concussion, I cleared my throat and replied in a high pitched voice, "Holy Cat Litter, Batman…"

Catwoman grinned, "How could I forget?"

I stared down silently at Tetch's still body for a moment. When I looked to her, I found her eyes were studying me. For some reason, I said, "Thank you."

She shook here head, "Not something I hear very often. From your kind."

"It's a thankless profession, saving lives," I countered.

"Good thing I'm only part-time… a supplement to my full-time job."

A smirk crept onto my lips momentarily, even as my brain started becoming a rational thinking tool. I should have jumped down, secured Tetch, called in for a pickup and yet for some reason I was just sitting there next to Selina Kyle in the dark with a stupid smile on my face.

Maybe it was a really bad concussion.

She sighed softly, "I would offer to help you out… while he's away… but I don't think Daddy would approve of us playing unsupervised."

I had always been irked when the individuals that knew me as Nightwing referred to Batman as my father. Sure, Dick Grayson was the adopted son of Bruce Wayne, but that was in my personal life, not my masked one. The way she had said it made it easier to bear, "Understood… cats and birds don't get along anyway."

Catwoman beamed at me, "You were always a clever little bird… But now you're all grown up… makes me feel like an old cat all of the sudden."

I suddenly felt her eyes on me again and when I looked to her, I offered, "Well, he has a thick, hard shell… teeny tiny cream filling. But it's there."

"Awful lot of work for such a little reward…" her eyebrows arched softly, "I prefer the least amount of effort with the biggest payout." Her hand touched the dried blood that covered my temple, brushing back my bangs.

"Wh-what?" I stammered.

She bit her lip before suggesting, "Curiouser and curiouser…"

Before I could mentally make note that she had quoted Alice in Wonderland, I was flat on my back with a cat on top of me. I felt teeth nipping at my throat as she knelt above me, putting my pelvis in the vice of her legs. I should have simply flung her off of me and hoped that she would land on her feet like her namesake. Instead, after I had grabbed her upper arms, I found that I couldn't carry through with it.

When the teeth retreated, claws raked my chest as she began to firmly rub her pelvis against mine. My breath started coming in pants and rather than ask her what she was doing, I found myself burying my own teeth into the flesh of neck. Throaty purrs rose to her lips and I found myself flipping her over on to her back in order to bear my weight down on her. Catwoman's back arched as she spread her legs to allow my to lie between them.

Reason and logic and even self preservation stepped aside as lust and desire surfaced.

No wonder Bruce always "questioned" her by himself.

As I began unzipping the front of her jacket, her legs wrapped around the back of knees. Although we had been thinking of her endless dance between good and bad minutes earlier, I wanted nothing more than to show my appreciation for her good sumaritanism in the most naughtiest of ways.

"Selina…" I whispered as I moved to lay on top of her once more.

"This is insane, we shouldn't… oh please, don't stop…" she said between gasps as I returned the gesture of rotating my hips against hers. When I had gone silent in wonderment of what was happening, she growled, "What's the matter, cat got your tongue."

"You can have it," I shot back before my tongue teased a vertical line down her torso, "Anywhere you want it."

As I reached for the fixture securing my own Kevlar reinforced leggings, her teeth snagged my ear and I gasped in shock. One of her hands reached down and began to tease me, leading me to purr into her ear. through the material of her own leather pants, I let my fingers tease over her, pinching and probing until she began to shudder, "Please," she begged, "Please… oh please…"

"Since you asked nicely, Selina," I grinned down at her as her suddenly hands cupped my face, nails gently scratching my warm cheeks

"Please," she moaned as her legs rose to wrap around my waist, pressing her flush against the length of me, "Please…. Don't be dead."

I hesitated, "I'm not dead… As you can see... I'm far from it."

Her eyes had lost the lust that had been resident a moment earlier, only to be filled with concern, "You can't die… Batman will kill me…"

"What?" I asked, entirely confused.

"Nightwing," she called out before slapping me in the face.

When my eyes opened, I wasn't hovering above an aroused and mostly nude Selina Kyle. I wasn't about to fulfill a secret dream I had suffered through most of my adolescence. She wasn't looking up at me, begging for me to take her in a musty, abandoned auditorium.

Instead, I was looking up at her on the walkway above the stage.

Crap.

Crap, crap, crap.

"Wakey wakey, big bird…"

Drawing a ragged breath, I asked, "What happened?"

When I tried to sit up, she pushed me back down, "I dragged you up here and then you passed out. How long were you hanging there?"

"I don't know… twenty minutes…" I said, trying to convince myself that the last five minutes of conversation turned erotic delight had been a figment of my imagination.

She gently touched the back of my head, "Blood is all dry… might have been even longer. Good thing I decided to pop in and see what was going on."

"Yeah," I sighed, "Good thing."

She looked down at me, the worry ebbing, "You were moaning… I… I thought I was going have to carry you to the Free Clinic."

"Moaning?" I asked, my heart rate jumping.

"And you were…" she paused before continuing, "Never mind, you're all right, that's what matters. Here, let me help you up."

As she bent over me to support my shoulders, I rose too quickly given how off my balance was and landed face first into the front of her jacket. Retreating slowly, I looked to see her face was as shocked as mine. When I started to apologize, she rose to her feet and quickly said, "Think you can climb down the ladder over there by yourself."

"Yes," I answered even though I wasn't sure.

"Good… well… This has been fun," she shook her head slightly.

"Thank you… for helping me… I honestly didn't have anyone in the city tonight… but you," I admitted.

"Anytime, big bird…" she turned to leave, stopping her tracks, "Sorry, I have to know…"

I silently nodded, dreading the next words out of her mouth.

A grin comparable with that of the Cheshire Cat spread across her face, "What did I ask so nicely for?"

^V^

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